The Sustainability Team Is Listening. Here’s What We Heard.

With current regulations like the EU’s Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) and future standards like the European Sustainability Reporting Standard (ESRS), customers who are not already required to disclose their emissions could face that requirement as early as 2026 (for fiscal year 2025).

For many customers, the largest percentage of their carbon emissions comes from their value chain. This includes both upstream sources like purchased goods and services (e.g., their use of Akamai Connected Cloud) and downstream sources such as the use of the products they sell. That means customers will be looking to suppliers like Akamai to help quantify and better understand these Scope 3 emissions for measurement and reporting.

This shifting landscape presents an incredible opportunity for Akamai to help our customers talk about what could be a meaningful piece of their carbon footprint. To explore what is possible, we held a total of eight listening sessions across four cities, which led to some very robust conversations and key perspectives.

As we set out for our trip, we kept one question in mind: How can Akamai be the best possible partner for our customers on this journey? Here is what we heard.

This conversation starts with our customers. They will be up against a lot in the next few years, so we wanted to understand their unique challenges and how Akamai might provide even better support as a trusted partner in their sustainability journey.

We met with a diverse group of companies, ranging from the airline industry to broadcasting to logistics and asked how we can help. Each customer had their own unique interests and needs, but there were three recurring themes.

1. Customers have a lot on their plates. Although many are being proactive in preparing to meet new regulations, sustainability is sometimes just one of many competing priorities.

2. Customers recognize the unique value our emissions data provides, but they struggle to get the same level of specificity from other suppliers. This can complicate measurement and reporting.

3. There is an incredible interest in more data, more support, and more storytelling, which creates a massive opportunity for Akamai to lend a hand. 

With these themes in mind, we posed some simple questions to our employees, as well, to better understand how they are approaching these customer conversations. Here’s what we heard from our employees.

We asked, “What sustainability questions are customers asking that are most difficult to answer?” Key themes included detailed questions about Akamai’s sustainability strategy, our emissions data and calculations, and regulations. These types of questions indicate that our customers are interested in engaging beyond a surface level, which is great news for the future of our sustainability program.

We also asked, “What resources would better prepare you to lead sustainability discussions?” Key responses here included additional sustainability assets, training, and storytelling support to continue to build on our current successes.

The high level of engagement and thoughtful dialogue in these sessions made it very apparent that our teams are eager to meet our customers’ sustainability needs and bring them deeper into the conversation. We will use the rich feedback from both groups to inform our sustainability program and empower our sales teams to meet our customers’ unique and emerging needs.

This tour was and is not something that a sustainability team would generally undertake; many teams leave it to sales to build their own approach to integrating sustainability.

This tour occurred when everyone was actively working to make sense of the new sustainability-focused legislation that was happening in real time. The ever-evolving regulatory landscape provides an opportunity for Akamai to help our customers take proactive steps for the future. We could have done these sessions virtually, but we felt that it was important to meet with stakeholders in person and let both our customers and our sales teams know that we are here for their success.

We came away inspired and even more laser-focused on the work ahead. Empowering our sales teams while helping our customers meet their own sustainability goals is no small task. Meaningful climate action will take the efforts of all of us, and these conversations were a big step forward.